Tim Grove's research focus is on the processes that have led to the chemical differentiation of the crust and mantle of the Earth and on the processes of formation and evolution of the interiors of other planets, including the moon, Mars, Mercury and meteorite parent bodies. A professor of ...

Sarvesh Garimella is a graduate student interested in using laboratory studies and models to understand how natural and anthropogenic aerosols affect the formation and persistence of ice and mixed-phase clouds in the atmosphere and ultimately the climate system.Video by Helen Hill, MIT

We take two tanks (of diameter roughly 50 cm) and place one on a rotating table and the other on a desk. We fill them with water to a depth of 20 cm or so, and set the rotating table turning anticlockwise (looking down from the top) at a speed of order 10 rpm ...

It is straightforward to obtain a steady, axially-symmetric circulation driven by radial temperature gradients in our laboratory tank, which provides an ideal opportunity to study the thermal wind relation.

We bring the cylindrical tank, filled to a depth of 10 cm or so with water at a uniform temperature, up to solid-body rotation at a speed of 5 rpm, say. We sprinkle a few small crystals of potassium permanganate in to the tank. Note the Taylor columns. Now we reduce ...

Here we study the mechanism by which the wind stress drives ocean circulation. We induce circulation by rotating a disc at the surface of a tank of water which is itself rotating. The laboratory setup is as follows.

We can study convection in a laboratory setting. A stable stratification can be set up in a 50cm square tank by slowly filling it up with water whose temperature is slowly increased with time. This is done using (i) a mixer that mixes hot and cold water together and ...

Everyone is familiar with the swirl and gurgling sound of water flowing down a drain. In this laboratory experiment we explore this problem quantitatively, and draw out the strong parallels between it and the large scale flow in the atmosphere and ocean. We rotate a ...

We place a large tank on our rotating table and fill it with water to a depth of 10 cm or so. We then take a hollow metal cylinder, generously rub petroleum jelly around its lower rim, and place it in the center of the tank so that it protrudes slightly above the ...

Read more about Principal Research Scientist Patrick Heimbach's work in MIT's Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at MIT News, the MITgcm website, and the website for NASA's ECCO2.About the animation: The simulation was conducted with the MIT coupled ocean-sea ice general ...